This invention relates to continuous forms that receive computer generated information from computer controlled printing devices. The continuous form assembly of the invention, particularly useful in the travel industry, includes invoice and itinerary information sheets plus an information carrying document jacket overlayed for simultaneous imprinting during a single pass through a printer.
Travelers on commercial carriers today may need passage tickets, boarding passes, travel vouchers, itineraries, reservations for hotels and automobiles, tickets and reservations for meals and events and even other documents and information. Travel agencies service the needs of travelers by obtaining or generating the necessary tickets and other documents and preparing printed itineraries for the travelers. Most modern travel agencies subscribe to and are "on-line" with one or more of the computer operated reservation systems provided by certain major air line companies. The computer program of such systems accept, in addition to air travel information, hotel and automobile reservations and other data, all of which can printed out to create a complete traveler's itinerary.
A travel agent may spend an inordinate amount of time obtaining, preparing, organizing and packaging the documents and information for a customer's journey. Packaging usually entails the agent placing the various documents into a separate ticket jacket, envelope or other small document pouch and sometimes stapling documents to the jacket, envelope or pouch. Handwriting or typing onto the jacket, envelope or pouch may be required to provide the traveler with full information regarding the journey and/or the enclosed documents.
Reduction of the time spent and materials consumed for the various steps for generating and packaging the documents for each traveler is desired for travel agency labor cost control and efficiency. One continuous form assembly addressed to that need is the "Continuous Form Multiple Ply Assembly", U. S. Pat. No. 4,493,496. That assembly provides for simultaneous generation of some documents and a document folder on continuous form paper rolls or fanfolds of at least 13" width with a document folder formed by longitudinally folding the bottom sheet.
It is, therefore, an object of this invention to provide an improved document assembly for computer directed printing of information simultaneously on several sheets that include a sheet foldable to form a document holding jacket. It is another object of the invention to provide such a document assembly in narrow roll or fanfold continuous form configuration to miminize paper size and to reduce paper waste. A further object is to reduce travel agency employee labor required to generate, assemble and package travel documents. It is also an object of the invention to lessen the number of separate supply items required to be stocked by a travel agency to provide and package travel documents for travelers. Other objects and advantages will be apparent in the following summary and description of the invention.